Natural feed?

[U_Stormcrow]

He's doing a lot right - I don't mean to give short shrift to his methods or his contributions to the community - but his system *IS* a system, a lot of components working together - taking a few pieces out and trying to make them work in isolation is like a puzzle with more than a few pieces missing.

 

[AGeese]

This was one of the videos that came to mind, been a while since I watched it. The claims at first glance appear to be the same:

31 minutes...

 

[U_Stormcrow]

And have you checked out your local co-ops and mills? I cut my feed bills considerably when I found a good quality feed thru q local source, but I'm also close to some major poultry operations, so I'm very lucky in that regard, since I can grab the coat tails of the economies of scale they make possible at the local mill

 

[AGeese]

And have you checked out your local co-ops and mills? I cut my feed bills considerably when I found a good quality feed thru q local source, but I'm also close to some major poultry operations, so I'm very lucky in that regard, since I can grab the coat tails of the economies of scale they make possible at the local mill

Are you saying you can get better than 17 dollars for feed or sprouting seed? I should be able to find something local, if I can't I better leave Iowa.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Are you saying you can get better than 17 dollars for feed or sprouting seed? I should be able to find something local, if I can't I better leave Iowa.

Yes. Much. Though prices are up. I'll find my last feed receipt tomorrow from a few days back so I can quote to the penny. It was around $17.10 for a bag of 24% protein game bird grower (50#), and $11.30 per bag (also 50#) for 16% layer. When I started, that bag was $9.60.

 

[AGeese]

Nice, the 50 lbs bags are holding up now, but I know the girls are going to continue to grow for another good year and so I will need to look for cost cuts. I haven't done any calculations on what my birds might consume once fully grown.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Which is good, because unlike Karl, no one is paying me to pick up thousands of gallons of food waste each week, for later resale as organic compost. I've not read much about his operation, but a facebook page, unverified claims he has 1200 birds, mixed age and gender, producing 1000 eggs a week. Those aren't big number of eggs fir the flock count, but he also doesn't have breeds famed as early or high volume layers.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

In theory, since my 54 birds are all adults, they are expected to eat about 1/4# each a day, the pekin ducks twice that, effectively 64 birds and a total of 16# per day (expected/predicted). During winter with my pasture, I was able to feed 13- 14#/day w/o them getting too fat or too thin. Currently, I'm feeding 10# a day. It helps, but this is about as good as it gets for me with my current pasture. Based on their behaviors, I may be able to cut to 9#/day, I need to cull a couple for table and check their condition internally.

and I'm collecting 30-32 eggs a day, plus 4-5 duck eggs, but most of my birds are hens.

And always interested in ways I can do it better.

 

[raingarden]

Good thread. Thank you all.

 

[McChooky]

@ChickChic00 I went to the Livestock Conservancy website and fell in love with the story of the Dominique, so that's what I'm up to! (I feed them bagged chicken feed, if that wasn't clear in my earlier post)



^ This seems like a very possible outcome if their nutrition fell short from a homemade diet.

After learning about them and raising them I feel the same way!